We Need Something That’s Wild

The title of this post is also meant to be taken figuratively as well as literally as it refers not just to the wild outdoors but also to those things, that are not necessarily uncontrollable, but rather are considered unsafe!

So what the heck am I on about you may be asking yourself. Well when you next have the TV on take the opportunity to watch the news and I’m pretty certain that you’ll see something about some form of extreme activity or action. This may involve sport or something illegal however it will be something that goes beyond the bounds of what is rational and therefore is “dangerous”. Now I’ll start by giving you an insight into my youth (oooh!). I am the middle of three brothers, my parents never had a vast amount of money and we never really had anything particularly new when we were growing up. We were late to the introduction of the VCR, our first computer was a second hand ZX Spectrum 48k, our first games console was one of the old Atari 2600 and we never had any games other than ping pong. We lived in a council house, only had one TV, walked home from the supermarket laden with shopping bags (buses too expensive), and didn’t always have a car and when we did it wasn’t very good. My parents worked hard to feed us and pay the rent but we got by. Life was hard but fun and I think I turned out pretty good.

So now you’ve got the idea that we weren’t very well off. Whats that go to do with the title. Ok here goes.

Life has got too easy, to the point where we now need things that are more and more extreme to feel validated. The standard of living has gone up in the UK to the point where if a child of 8 doesn’t have an iPad then they are considered poor. This should be considered a luxury item and yet it has become a necessity. I have friends who are on benefits and they have 2 iPads. Thieving scroungers you may say however they receive these benefits and believe that the basic standard of living requires you to own one of these things.

Now this just looks like one of my commercialism rants again however my point about wild is this - If day to day life is easy, and by that I mean that food and shelter are almost automatic and even luxury items are the standard, where is the challenge to that security. Well the challenge is in risk. We’ve achieved the safety and security aspect of Maslows hierarchy and now were supposed to progress upwards to Ego and self Actualisation and yet there is a proportion of the population that chooses to challenge their security.

We need to feel at risk to then enjoy the safety we have. We need a threat of some kind to then feel validated and safe. Without the threat we look for new threats, new ways of making our selves feel unsafe. In the UK the “Wild” no longer exists, we have tamed our island over the several thousand years humans have lived here. Shouldn’t we try to return some of it to a wild state? If we did maybe we’d appreciate it a bit more. Shouldn’t we also give up some of those luxury items that we don’t need. Why do I need a mobile phone with 3G and Wifi. I don’t, it’s a luxury. How many of you have left yours at home and felt like you’d lost an arm. We feel safe and secure and then go looking for the risk - fast cars, extreme sport, drugs, drugs, drugs, extreme sexual pursuits (whether consensual or forced). To me these are all symptoms of a society that is living to excess because the risk inherent in living has gone. We have a nanny state that tells us what to do and how to live so we don’t have to be in control of our own existence and focus on pleasurable pursuits. We have manicured parks and well maintained paths, GPS and guided walks so we can feel like were in touch with nature yet we’re more and more divorced from it in our central heated, air conditioned homes.

Hmmm, it turned into a rant didn’t it. How about trying this - no internet for a week, no phone, don’t eat out, don’t get drunk, go for a walk in the “countryside” in an area you don’t know, eat as a family, talk to your partner, help someone that you don’t know.

Scary isn’t it. Is it Wild?